Climate technology becomes more and more relevant in international environmental policy negotiations. At the Kyoto conference binding emission reduction targets have been established for several regions of the world. The major challenge is how to realize these reduction goals with minimum costs without generating new distributional and social difficulties. The book analyses the macroeconomic structural and distributional impacts of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for the EU and the member states.

The book provides an integrated analysis of the implications for the energy system from adapting to meet climate change targets and analyses the role of improving energy technologies for the world and the EU markets. The first part of the book sets the stage for the analysis by presenting the European and World economic and energy outlook. The second part examines the policy options available for controlling greenhouse gases in the period to 2010. Over such a relatively short period, the role of technology lies mostly in making possible the more efficient use of energy. Finally, the third part of the volume examines the longer term role of technology in the context of a case study for the power generation sector.

Coordination And Communication Using Signs: Studies in Organisational Semiotics is a cutting-edge volume that bridges the gap between the technical and social aspects of information systems and information technology. The chapters in the book are divided into two major sections. The first section deals with Communication and Pragmatics, and Organisational Systems and the following topics are examined: the semiotic framework and natural language; coordination and communication using natural language and other artifacts in a real-life setting; substantive-level issues of information systems and business processes from several theoretical perspectives; language as action; communication quality in the context of systems and business processes; organisational action and Greimas' semiotics. Section Two concentrates on organisational systems, which may or may not include a computer system as a component and examines the following topics: semiotic strategies and semiotic models of organisational structures; the impact of information technology with instructive case studies; the impact of information technology with a particular focus on sense-making in the work floor context; the design of computer information systems; improving the design quality of agent-based information systems; the design of information systems, in terms of capacity, and data scheme. All the chapters in the volume have been submitted to a review process of discussants and peer reviews.

Maintaining the innovation capabilities of firms, employees and institutions is a key component for the generation of sustainable growth, employment, and high income in industrial societies. Gaining insights into the German innovation system and the institutional framework is as important to policy making as is data on the endowment of the German economy with factors fostering innovation and their recent development. Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research has repeatedly commissioned reports on the competitive strength of the German innovation system since the mid-eighties. The considerable attention that the public and the political, administrative and economic actors have paid to these reports in the past few years proves the strong interest in the assessment of and indicators for the dynamics behind innovation activities. The present study closely follows the pattern of those carried out before. It has been extended, however, to include an extensive discussion on indicators for technological performance and an outline of the key features of the German innovation system.

Empirical and theoretical evidence on the German service sector is inversely related to its growing overall importance for the entire economy. This monograph offers a comprehensive theory-based econometric treatment of three important and severely understudied issues related to services: innovative activity, the effects of innovation on the demand for labour, and the performance of newly founded firms. In addition, the book contains detailed descriptive statistics on innovative activity, skill mix as well as on growth and current economic importance. It offers researchers, policy makers, and practitioners a unique opportunity to gain knowledge on the new German service economy.